One technology that has dominated wireless systems is Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology. In addition to CDMA, an air interface specification defines FLO (Forward Link Only) technology that has been developed by an industry-led group of wireless providers. In general, FLO has leveraged the most advantageous features of wireless technologies available and used the latest advances in coding and system design to consistently achieve the highest-quality performance. One goal is for FLO to be a globally adopted standard.
The FLO technology was designed in one case for a mobile multimedia environment and exhibits performance characteristics suited ideally for use on cellular handsets. It uses the latest advances in coding and interleaving to achieve the highest-quality reception at all times, both for real-time content streaming and other data services. FLO technology can provide robust mobile performance and high capacity without compromising power consumption. The technology also reduces the network cost of delivering multimedia content by dramatically decreasing the number of transmitters needed to be deployed. In addition, FLO technology-based multimedia multicasting complements wireless operators' cellular network data and voice services, delivering content to the same cellular handsets used on 3G networks.
The FLO wireless system has been designed to broadcast real time audio and video signals, apart from non-real time services to mobile users. The respective FLO transmission is carried out using tall and high power transmitters to ensure wide coverage in a given geographical area. Further, it is common to deploy 3-4 transmitters in most markets to ensure that the FLO signal reaches a significant portion of the population in a given market. Because of FLO transmitter coverage, it is possible to determine position locations based on triangulation techniques, for example. Traditional position location techniques make use of satellite based GPS signals for range measurements. However, the problem with satellite based signals is the lack of availability of the signal in indoor environments, for example, where line of sight to the satellites is not available. Conversely, FLO networks are often designed to achieve indoor coverage, and so the respective waveforms can provide positioning information to devices while located indoors.